SMAE Team Achievements at 2019 IMechE UAS Challenge Recognised by Bombardier at NIACE Event
IMechE UAS Challenge 2019 participants from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (SMAE) at Queens gathered at NIACE on the 9th of December. The teams were there after an invitation from Bombardier in Belfast to recognise their significant achievements at the IMechE UAS event in June 2019. Both teams finished in the top three from a starting field of thirty two entries from the UK, Canada, Denmark, Holland, Pakistan and SriLanka. Aerospace students Jacob, Matthew and Ryan gave presentations covering the development of their aircraft and insights into their overall experience. These included their academic and technical achievements, their overall enjoyment of their road trip to Wales and the comradery of their eventful camping experience! They also thanked their Bombardier mentors who were also in attendance and who supported them during the development of their aircraft during the 2018 -19 academic year. Mr Paul Hermon, Prof. Brian Falzon & Dr Joe Butterfield spoke on behalf of the School - thanking the students for their efforts and congratulating them on what they achieved. They reinforced the benefits of the design-build philosophy in our stage 3 group projects and affirmed the positive impacts that our participation in the IMechE UAS challenge has had on the quality of both our curriculum and our graduates. Stephen Addis, Michael Curran and Stephen Philips spoke on behalf of Bombardier and again congratulated the SMAE students. They also confirmed the positives around UAS Challenge participation. The competitors see first-hand the realistic challenges around developing and delivering an integrated aerospace system both on time and within budget challenges – just as they will in their future careers as practicing engineers. Many thanks to Bombardier for hosting this event and well done again to team Hibernica Liberandum (Irish Rescue) and team Flytanic. Jordan Davidson represented this year's SMAE Imeche UAS Challenge 2020 entrants at the Bombardier event where he was able to get plenty of advice for the development of their aircraft ASAP (Autonomous Support Aid Platform)! You can meet the rest of the team and keep up to date with their progress on the FLYMechE Facebook Page.